The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing the New Testament with the Old

In 1813, a Harvard graduate who had begun his theological studies before losing his faith published one of the earliest American critiques of Christianity. George Bethune English does not attack the religion from outside its own texts but from within, rigorously comparing the New Testament's portrayal of Jesus with the messianic prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures. His method is disciplined and textual: he examines the arguments of early Christian apologists, evaluates whether the predicted attributes of the Messiah align with the character of Jesus, and asks what should be obvious but was then incendiary: do the claims actually hold up? English wrote in an age when such questions could end a man's career, and his preface argues that truth needs no protection beyond honest scrutiny. The result is a work that laid groundwork for generations of religious skepticism in America while revealing the fault lines that have always run beneath fundamentalist certainty. For readers interested in the history of freethought, early American intellectual life, or the enduring challenge of applying rationalist methods to sacred texts.